Last year, the South Carolina Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit, challenging the state’s open primary as applied to the Republican Party. The trial in that case had been set for August 2012, but it has been postponed until January 2013 at the earliest. The case is The Greenville County Republican Party v State of South Carolina, 6:10-cv-1407. The postponement is because discovery is so extensive and so time-consuming.
On July 17, U.S. District Richard W. Story dismissed the Green Party and Constitution Party ballot access lawsuit which challenges Georgia’s petition requirement for minor party and independent presidential ballot access. The order is only four pages, and the substantive part is only one paragraph. Judge Story said that because the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld Georgia’s 5% petition for Governor in Jenness v Fortson, and because lower courts had upheld Georgia’s 5% petition for Congress in Cartwright v Barnes, and Coffield v Kemp, therefore the Georgia presidential petition of 1% must be constitutional.
The judge didn’t mention Bergland v Harris, nor Anderson v Celebrezze, both of which said states have a diminished interest in keeping presidential candidates off their ballots, relative to other office. Bergland v Harris is an 11th circuit precedent, and Georgia is in the 11th circuit. Bergland v Harris said that Georgia’s 2.5% petition might very well be unconstitutional as applied to presidential candidates, and remanded the case back to a lower court. Before the lower court could act, the Georgia legislature lowered the 2.5% petition down to 1%.
As noted earlier, on June 7 the Arizona legislature filed an interesting federal case, arguing that Independent Redistricting Commissions are unconstitutional as applied to U.S. House elections, because the Elections Clause in Article One of the U.S. Constitution requires that legislatures themselves must pass all state laws relating to congressional elections. That case is Arizona State Legislature v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 2:12-cv-1211.
The legislature probably made a legal error when it asked for a 3-judge U.S. District Court. The redistricting commission is arguing that this case is not appropriate for a 3-judge U.S. District Court. Federal law says cases challenging redistricting of congressional elections goes to a 3-judge court, but the redistricting commission says this case isn’t about whether the redistricting plan itself is unlawful, but instead is a case about the method by which Arizona carries out redistricting. This side dispute is eating up valuable time, if the legislature wanted to get the case settled quickly.
On July 17, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors heard testimony on three separate proposals to limit the use of Ranked-Choice Voting in city elections. After hearing from approximately 40 members of the public, the Board voted unanimously to send all three proposals back to the Rules Committee, which almost certainly means that the issue will not come up again for several months.
On July 17, President Obama’s re-election campaign, and the Ohio Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Committee filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio. The lawsuit charges that Ohio’s elimination of early voting on November 3-5 (the weekend and Monday before election day) violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Ohio permitted early voting on the three days before the 2008 presidential election, but the law was changed since then. Here is the complaint. The case is Obama for America v Husted, 2:12-cv-636. It was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Peter C. Economus, a Clinton appointee.
The case will point out all the problems in Ohio in November 2004, when at some precincts, there were so few voting booths, and so many voters, that some voters had to wait in line for more than four hours. Other Ohio precincts with fewer voters had many more voting booths, and voters in those precincts had to wait only a brief time in order to vote. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
